The Dying of the Light
by jtav
Summary: Rachel has always been the hero the galaxy needed, but malfunctioning implants force her to place her life in the hands of Miranda Lawson once more. A Cerberus officer on an Alliance ship. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

Miranda had been captured only once in her twenty years with Cerberus. She had gotten reckless when dealing with a gang of asari and turian pirates who had stolen Prothean technology the Illusive Man wanted for himself. The pirates had taken one look at her and decided she would fetch a fair price at the flesh markets of Omega. Escaping had been a relatively trivial matter—being willing to kill the entire crew if necessary had expanded her options marvelously. But being captured by C-Sec? That complicated things.

She paced the length of her cell. It was spare, little more than a hard bed, a metal desk, and a toilet, but it was clean. That made it better than most the places she had slept in the last six months. Some of the officers had shot her amazed or murderous looks as they passed by, but none of them had so much is spoken to her, let alone try to murder what most of them would have seen as humanity's greatest traitor. The food was bad, but no worse than what Gardner had served before Shepard had found him some decent ingredients.

Gardner. One of the reasons she had to get out of here. She'd known there would be repercussions to refusing the Illusive Man's improvements and helping Chambers and a few other members of her former crew leave Cerberus. The assassination attempts weren't even a surprise, really. The Illusive Man didn't brook doubt, dissension, or defection. That Rupert Gardner had been one of those assassins had shocked her. She had hadn't even known the man knew how to use a gun. But this hadn't been the Gardner she had known. His eyes had been the cold unnatural blue of a husk, and he had moved with grace and speed equal to Miranda's, and there had been enough power behind his blows to give even Zaeed pause. Only her barriers had saved her, and he'd still managed to graze her with a knife before she got away.

After that, it hadn't been enough just to avoid Cerberus. She had to find out what is truly become of them. Bit by bit details begin to emerge: scientists—some who had been loyal operatives for almost as long as Miranda herself—disappearing without a trace. Cerberus had always had small squads of well-trained commandos, but there were whispers of an army. Lazarus and the SR-2 had nearly bankrupted them, but now their resources had seemed infinite. And then she had found the datapad.

Her contact had told her only that Cerberus was studying Reaper technology at a base on Sanctum. What she has found were dozens of soldiers, some barely out of their teens, in the same state as Gardner along with a half dozen scientists. And the logs:

_I believe I can repurpose Operative Lawson's designs for a control chip and combine it with the Grayson experiments… subjects will be loyal but not suffer the degradation found with standard indoctrination…also replacing several organs with cybernetics along the lines of Project Lazarus to increase efficiency and speed the integration process…L calls me a fool, says he would have fewer casualties…works best in humans between the ages of sixteen and forty-five._

They had taken her work and perverted it. The control chip had been a failsafe in case Shepard had come back as a raging beast or decided Akuze and Kahoku mattered more to her than tens of thousands of faceless colonists. But indoctrination was the most terrible, insidious weapon of the enemy she had fought for the last three years. It was a slow death of everything that made you what you were. Using that to create loyal troops was the sort of thing her father would have done. She had believed Teltin and Overlord to be outliers, but this was beyond anything Archer would have dreamed of doing. The Illusive Man had either lost his mind, somehow fallen under the influence of the Reapers within the last six months, or… Miranda swallowed. Or Cerberus had always been like this and she had just been too blind to see. How many other cherished projects that she had intended to advance humanity and its place in the galaxy had been twisted into instruments of oppression and needless cruelty? She had shrugged off calls that she was a terrorist and a monster. Someone had to work in the shadows and do what the Alliance could not. Humanity could learn much from the other races, but it had to be able to stand on its own world would end up like the volus and elcor, begging for whatever scraps the Council deigned to give them. Of course the Council would hate any organization that could threaten their cultural and political hegemony. Lies and propaganda were par for the course. Miranda had not joined Cerberus for glory. She had wanted neither more nor less than the defense and preservation of humanity.

And now Cerberus had betrayed humanity. They would have to be dealt with as all traitors to humanity were dealt with. As Miranda had dealt with Wilson. They had taken her desire for a cause and used her own blindness to further their ends. The Illusive Man had told her that she could use her talents for more than feeding her father's ego. So she would. She would use them to destroy the very organization she had helped build. As soon as she found a way out of here.

C-Sec was filled with hotheaded twits that made Garrus look reasonable, but they would still be the first line of defense when the Reapers inevitably attacked the station. Anyone she killed or injured in her escape were soldiers who wouldn't be able to fight that battle. They were obstacles, not the enemy. A brute force approach would be disastrous. What resources did she have? There were still a few trusted contacts that she might be able to bribe, threaten, or cajole into giving her transport off the station once she escaped. There was the omni-tool implanted into her very bone. There was her knowledge of Cerberus and the experiments they were performing that would make a valuable bargaining chip if Bailey or someone who was actually important visited her as she had requested. And, if it came to that, there was her looks. One or two of the guards had looked at her like she was a steak dinner. Lust made people terribly stupid.

"Visitor." The force field deactivated and a pair of conspicuously armed officers entered. Miranda submitted to their examination of her cell and her person with as much grace as she could muster. Bailey at last, thank God. If she were fortunate, she would be out of here and back to making sure Cerberus didn't get even more of the Reapers' work within the day.

But it wasn't Bailey who walked through the door. It was Shepard. The past six months had not been kind to her. She looked as if she hadn't slept in a week or eaten in two. She no longer wore the subtle blush or lip gloss that Miranda had become so accustomed to during their fight against the Collectors. She was, however, wearing her dress blues; and those were immaculate, of course. That made Miranda smile despite herself. Shepard had hated every moment of working for Cerberus, but she had insisted on wearing what passed for formal officer's dress at all times while on duty. Every polished button and straightened collar had been a salvo in a war against a universe that no longer made sense. Clearly, the universe still made no more sense to Shepard than it did to Miranda these days.

"Thank you," Shepard said with a cheerful smile. "You two can go. I can handle it from here."

"But Commander—"

"I can handle it." The smile remained, but there was steel lurking just below the surface now. Miranda knew that tone well. Friendly, warm even, but scratch away the pleasant veneer and you would find the woman who had survived a thresher maw attack by sheer force of will, sacrificed over two thousand human lives to save the Destiny Ascension, and destroyed an entire star system.

The two officers had more brain cells than Miranda had given them credit for because they turned on their heels and left.

Shepard let the silence linger, either out of a genuine loss for words or a desire to make Miranda sweat. Either was possible. They hadn't been friends. Shepard had believed too much in the Alliance and Miranda had believed too much in Cerberus. Though Shepard deciding to awake the big, angry krogan without telling her hadn't exactly helped matters on that score either. The one inexplicable moment of grace had been her encouraging Miranda to talk to her sister. But there had been no mutual defrosting, no discovery that had made them the best of friends. Shepard had handed Cerberus the base with many threats about what she would do with the Illusive Man if he so much as thought about misusing it. Miranda had accepted her assignment to another cell, and that was the last she ever expected to see of the woman she had spent two years rebuilding.

Shepard shook her head. "This was not how I expected to see you again, Lawson."

"I got careless. Wasn't expecting my omni-tool to set off the scanners."

"Ah." Shepard's gaze cast around the room nervously. She didn't look like the best hope for the galaxy. She looked like a fish flopping around on dry land. "Is Oriana okay?"

"She was the last time we spoke. As far as I can tell, Father had stopped all attempts to locate her." Which worried her more than it should have. Henry Lawson never gave up, and Oriana no longer had Cerberus to protect her. Perhaps he was simply focusing on survival for the time being, but his inaction made Miranda uneasy. "But you didn't come here to ask after my family."

"No, I didn't." Her entire face changed. Nervousness melted away to reveal the quiet anxiety of a woman accustomed to having the fate of the galaxy on her shoulders. "I saw the bugs on the wall and ceiling. Any others?"

So it hadn't been just nervousness that made her refuse to meet Miranda's eyes. "Under the desk. Audio only."

Shepard marched over and removed it with a quick, efficient movement. "Sometimes I love being a Spectre." She sat down in the metal chair, angling it to face Miranda. "I…God this is hard… I had this whole speech prepared."

"Shepard?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm fine. No, that's a lie. If I were fine, I'd be out there kicking Reaper ass." Her gaze dropped to the floor. "After you left the_ Normandy_, Hackett contacted me asking to rescue an old friend of his who had been studying Reaper technology. Big surprise. That technology indoctrinated them."

"I do manage to watch the news," Miranda said dryly.

"But what the vids won't tell you is that I was their 'guest' for two days. Kenson wanted me patched up for God-knows-what reason. Whatever they did gave me a hell of a headache, but it made my biotics more powerful. When I got back to the Alliance, the docs pronounced me as healthy as a horse. And I was more or less okay for a while. But ever since the Reapers showed up, the headaches have been getting worse. I haven't been sleeping. My biotics are even more powerful, but I feel like death after every battle. And so I need to know…" She looked up then, and her eyes were fever bright. "I need to know if that Reaper tech you stuck into me to make Lazarus work could be indoctrinating me."

"No!" Miranda said quickly.

Shepard managed a half-smile. "You sound really sure of yourself, Lawson. You sure that's smart considering Cerberus' track record with Reaper tech? Hell, everybody's track record with Reaper tech?"

Pride flowed through Miranda like rushing water, scraping away defeats and misjudgments. "Unlike those idiots at the derelict Reaper, I'm a competent scientist. I double and triple checked those implants before I even thought about putting them into your nervous system. Those implants won't indoctrinate you any more than a Thanix cannon would. And have you ever known indoctrination to increase biotic ability?"

Shepard shook her head. "But the docs cleared me for duty. And I can't go back for anything other than the usual after-battle patch job." Her voice turned bitter. "Can you imagine what would happen if word got out that Commander fucking Shepard, professional Reaper killer and the last, best hope of humanity said she was indoctrinated, crazy, or whatever the hell it is that's wrong with me? People need hope right now. They need the legend who was so badass that she refused to die, not the woman being held together by cybernetics."

"You aren't indoctrinated," Miranda repeated. "And those doctors don't know anything about your implants. Fortunately for you, I do. There are tests I can run, but I can't do them while I'm stuck here."

"And fortunately for you, I'm a Spectre." She took out a datapad and lightpen. "I asked that you be transferred into my custody indefinitely, and frankly, right now Bailey will do the polka if I ask him to. You can do whatever the hell you want after. I just need to know that I can still fight this war. Sign here."

Well, that was one way to escape.

* * *

The med center in Tayseri Ward was slightly run down, the off-white walls a sharp contrast to the gleaming chrome of the Presidium and the filth of the refugee camps. Tayseri was still recovering from the last war, and there were signs of reconstruction everywhere: metal framework hastily patched over, a tile not quite the same color as the rest of the floor. And if the geth and one Reaper could do damage that was still being fixed three years later, what hope did they have against an entire fleet?

The lab was deserted. Rachel had decided she didn't want to know how Miranda had managed that. What looked like an oversized sleeping pod with lots of flashing lights on the front stood in the center of the room. A quantum imaging device, Miranda had called it. To Rachel, it was mostly a very strange looking brain scanner. The cold air bit through her hospital gown.

Miranda walked in. She was thinner than she had been as Rachel's executive officer, and her hair was a ragged mess. She wore no lab coat, but her movements were as brisk and her mien as professional as the doctors who spent their days rushing from patient to patient at Huerta Memorial. Garrus and Joker had called Miranda an ice queen when they thought she wasn't listening. And she could be cold, prickly, and ruthless enough to leave the crew to die to increase the chances that the ground team made it to the heart of the Collector base. It had made her almost impossible to like. But that cold efficiency had its strength now. Here was someone who knew what they were doing. It was safe to stop being Commander Shepard and start being Rachel. Miranda would solve this problem the way she solved the problem of refueling permits or docking fees, and they would both go about their business.

She looked Rachel up and down, and Rachel could almost feel the thin gown burning away under her gaze. It wasn't lust. Rachel would have known what to do with lust: roll her eyes. But no, this was unfamiliar: the possessive, searching calculating gaze of someone who knew her body better than she did. Was this how Frankenstein had looked at his creation? No wonder the creature had gone crazy and tried to kill everyone in sight. Rachel shifted from foot to foot. A joke. Jokes were nice and safe. Break the tension. "How come I'm always the one who's wearing next to nothing? Have to get you in one of these things just for a change of pace. Not fair that I haven't seen you naked."

"If it's any comfort, you make a dreadful corpse." One side of her mouth curved upward. "I much prefer how you look now. If you could step inside." She pressed a button, and the container opened. "And try not to fidget."

The inside was cramped, like a coffin. A glass pane permitted her to see out, but Rachel kept her eyes screwed shut. Miranda's voice was muffled as if it were coming from underwater. Knowing Miranda, it was probably a bunch of variations on "Stop fidgeting, Shepard!" A low buzz filled her ears, and there was nothing to do but think.

Miranda was so sure that it wasn't indoctrination. And, to be sure, there were no strange voices in her head, no feeling of being watched. There were whispers, but only the anguished cries of those she could not save. But the pain scraped against her head like a dull knife. Maybe it was a brain tumor. That was what had killed Dad. But why wouldn't it have shown up during the routine physical? Healthy people her age didn't get brain tumors. Right?

The buzzing died away, and the door opened. "All done. I should have the results for you in a few hours." Miranda peered at her. "And, for God's sake, try to relax. I don't have the resources to run another Lazarus Project if you give yourself a heart attack from stress, and humanity needs you right now."

No, humanity needed Commander Shepard, but Rachel was the only one they had ever found to play the part. "Don't worry, Lawson. I'll keep myself out of trouble." In a few hours, she would know. Maybe she was doomed to an early death like her father. But the entire galaxy was doomed to extinction if the reapers weren't defeated. She wouldn't spend time worrying herself to death.

Miranda's hand brushed lightly over her forearm. Without gloves, her fingers were surprisingly warm. And soft. Not at all like Rachel's. Rachel's hands were hard with calluses from years of service to the Alliance. Heh. Funny to think of anything about Miranda being soft.

The heat vanished all too quickly. "I'll let you get dressed." Miranda vanished as swiftly and silently as smoke. Rachel started to call after her, but closed her mouth. What would she say?

She dressed quickly, girding herself in the armor of her dress blues. Anxiety receded back into the wrought-iron box where she kept all the other emotions she had no time for. Jondum Bau was waiting. There would be time enough for fear later. And for the feel of a warm hand on her.

* * *

_This is part game novelization, part fix fic, and part dealing with my newfound adoration of FShep/Miranda and female Shepard generally. It goes without saying that this is AU, and not just in the obvious way._


	2. Chapter 2

_Remember when I said this was part fix fic? One of those fixes is changing Ashley's rank to 2nd Lieutenant. Ash being freshly mustanged in preparation for becoming a Spectre is plausible. An NCO equaling Shepard in rank six months later isn't._

* * *

There were so many photographs on the wall. Rachel wondered how anyone could find who they were looking for. Hundreds of tattered, dirt-stained faces stared out at her, their faces covered in fingerprints. She and Ashley were here for one in particular. Thomas McMillan couldn't have been any older than twenty-five. His blue eyes were clear and honest, and his beret was set at a jaunty angle that gave him a faintly insolent air. Beneath the photo, MIA was stenciled in red block letters.

Ashley's gaze was intent, as if she could recover her sister's missing husband simply by staring long enough. Her bruises had all healed, and she was back in uniform. There was a new addition to that uniform: the Spectre symbol was embroidered on a patch on her right shoulder. This one was red instead of white. The symbol of a candidate who only needed to be vetted and recommended by an acting Spectre.

Ashley's fingers grazed the photograph. "Promise I'll find you and bring you home. For Sarah." She closed her eyes. "Please God, let me keep that promise."

Rachel bowed her head. _Let me fight the bastards that made you disappear in the first place. Give me strength to avenge every person here. Bring this war to a swift and certain end_. She crossed herself. Rachel had never been much for contemplation. Her prayers had been simple and goal-oriented: a plea to bring her mother home safely from the Blitz, thanksgiving for surviving Akuze, begging for forgiveness for shooting Wrex. _Let me keep fighting. Amen._

Ashley straightened. "Thanks, Commander. Let's go back to checking the logs and looking for crazy hanar. Somehow I imagined being a Spectre would be more shooting things and less paperwork and poking through encrypted files. This is worse than OCS."

"Boring crap is half of being a Spectre. Tell you what, L-T. Next time one of those krogan husk-things charges, I'll let you handle it. Or if we get any more killer robots."

Ashley rubbed the back of her neck. "On second thought, I'll let you handle those, ma'am. If you hadn't shot that thing when you did…"

"You would've been in the hospital for a lot longer than three days." She cracked a smile. "On the other hand, your evaluating officer wouldn't be quite such a hardass."

"I'll take my chances with her."

They walked through the throng. There had always been poor on the Citadel: quarian pilgrims who subsisted on nutrient paste, immigrants from the Terminus or Traverse hoping for a better life, or just people down on their luck. They had been kept carefully out of sight. War had ripped away the façade. Refugees huddled in groups of three or four. Two batarians passed a pitifully small nutrient bar between them. The shrill cry of a turian infant pierced the air, and the smell of sweat and unwashed bodies nearly made Rachel choke. Some of the refugees rushed hurriedly from point to point as if they had somewhere to be. Most, though, sat listlessly in the shipping containers that made for makeshift shelters.

"Garrus was wrong," she muttered. "It's not Illium that's a bad day away from Omega."

It was the flash of red that made her stop. Rachel turned her head. The refugee's clothes were no better than anyone else's, but her hair was a brilliant shade of red. A very familiar shade of red. Kelly's back was against the wall. A human man with bleach blonde hair loomed over her. "Bit late with your protection money, Chambers."

Kelly met his eyes, but her hands were shaking. "Those supplies are for the refugees. People that need them. Not war profiteers like the Suns."

"Oh, we need them. It's not cheap to keep order in a hellhole like this."

"And here we have the other half of being a Spectre," Rachel muttered. "Dealing with petty thugs who think a gun and a fancy uniform make them a big man. Leave her alone."

The blond whipped his head around, but it was Kelly who spoke first. "Shepard? Oh, thank God!"

The thug's eyes went wide. "S-Shepard? The Shepard?"

Rachel summoned biotic power that raced up and down the length of her arm and coalesced around her fist. It wouldn't deliver all that much force, but it looked really scary if you were some two-bit thug who had just graduated from stealing lunch money. Sometimes the show was everything. "That's right, pal. And this lady happens to be a friend of mine. You would want to hurt a friend of Commander Shepard, would you?"

Color drained from his face. "No." He turned back to Kelly. "How about I give you a pass this month? Maybe next month too?" And with that, he ran off.

"Shepard!" Kelly repeated. She dashed forward and enveloped Rachel in a suffocating hug. Rachel threw her arms up stiffly and placed her hands lightly on Kelly's shoulders. "I heard about Earth. I was so worried about you, not knowing if you were alive."

Rachel had never known quite what to do with Kelly's boundless empathy. It hadn't seemed right that someone that warm and trusting should belong to Cerberus. She thought it was a front, a carefully constructed artifice designed to seduce Rachel into confiding in her. But for now, she was just something warm and comforting. The complete opposite of Miranda and her tests. So Rachel let Kelly hold her.

"I'm all right. But what are you doing here? Not some kind of supersecret double agent for Cerberus are you?" It was only half a joke. She tried and failed to imagine Kelly lying, and she certainly didn't look like the other Cerberus agents Rachel had fought, but anything was possible.

Kelly shook her head vigorously. "No. After the mission, I took a good long look at what Cerberus really was. The Illusive Man lied to us. He put our lives in danger even when it wasn't necessary for the mission. Horrible experiments were allowed to continue. I couldn't in good conscience stay with Cerberus. You opened my eyes, Shepard."

"Er, you're welcome." Rachel stepped back. "But what are you doing here? How did you get away from Cerberus?"

"I told the Illusive Man what I told you: that it didn't feel right that I remain with Cerberus when I had so many doubts about them. I came here to help the refugees. I can do a lot of good here with my psychology degree."

"You just left?" Rachel gripped Kelly's shoulders, more tightly this time. Panic surged through her. "You didn't change your name or dye your hair or anything?"

"Shepard, I was just your yeoman. I'm nobody to Cerberus. They won't bother with me."

"Yes, Kelly. They will. I've seen what they do to their own soldiers. They turn them into husks. They call it integration. I don't want to see them do it to you. Change your identity. Go into hiding."

"Husks? They wouldn't—no, I don't know what Cerberus would do anymore." Kelly took a deep breath. "All right. I'll do it. For you."

Ashley watched her go, her lips pursed in thought. "She seemed nice," she said at last.

"She is. A bit too nice sometimes, but her heart is in the right place."

"Was that—was that how Cerberus got you on their side? By making sure you only saw the nice people?" Ashley dug the toe of her boot into the ground. "I read the file. Dr. Chakwas, Joker, Daniels and Donnelly. Even Jacob Taylor. All of them were true-blue Alliance types before they worked for Cerberus."

Rachel rubbed her temples. Sometimes it felt like she had analyzed every nanosecond of her association with Cerberus, and it still didn't make any sense. "No. It wasn't that. Cerberus gave me a chance to act. You remember how it was after we killed Sovereign. The Alliance sent us on a wild goose chase after geth stragglers. Even then, they weren't taking the Reaper threat seriously. And it was even worse after I came back. But Cerberus? They wanted me to fight Reaper agents and save human lives. I figured the Illusive Man must have some kind of agenda. I kept expecting Lawson to knife me in the back every time I went against her boss' orders. But Cerberus was still a lesser evil than the Reapers. I'd have worked with the Devil himself if he wanted to fight Reapers."

"Only it turned out the Devil was just as bad."

"Yeah." Rachel shrugged. "Come on. Let's get back to the boring part of being a Spectre."

She'd fudged the truth a bit, of course. It wasn't only desperation that had driven her to Cerberus. They had been seductive. The Alliance and the Council had swathed themselves in bureaucracy. Sometimes it seemed as they were more concerned with holding onto power than doing good. But the long leash the Illusive Man offered her had possibilities. No more worrying about upholding the Treaty of Whatever just so the Alliance could save face. Miranda, cold half-monster that she was, had proved a thousand times more tempting than Kelly. _They give me my resources and say do it._ Well, enough resources meant finally doing something about pirates. It meant actually making a damn effort to integrate biotics into society. It meant doing something about corporations like ExoGeni when they used colonists as lab rats. Cerberus could have given her the power to change things.

And then she had seen David Archer and remembered what they really were.

She and Ash were halfway through a list of soul names when Rachel's comm went off. Miranda. Had to be. Cold metal lodged itself in her gut, and sweat formed on her palms. "Sorry, Ash. I've got to take this. Trying to find someone to take Chakwas' place now that Hackett has her busy."

She stepped away. "Well?"

"Can we talk in private? I'll send you the navpoint for one of my safehouses." Miranda's voice was hollow. Not impersonal and slightly smug. Soft. Empathetic. Before the incident with Oriana, Rachel had wondered sometimes wondered if Miranda was really human or just an android Cerberus had created to spew propaganda and further their goals. She had waited for some sign of warmth or empathy, for the acknowledgement that advancing humanity meant caring about actual humans. Well, here it was, long after she needed it.

She liked it better when Miranda had been a jerk. "How bad is it?"

"Please, Shepard. I'd rather do this in person." The link went dead.

Rachel didn't remember making her excuses to Ashley or stumbling toward the Presidium. There was only a terrible fog that enveloped everything and chilled her to the bone. She'd told herself that things would be better as soon as she knew what was wrong. She'd know how to make everything go back to normal. She could take aspirin or something. But the loss of uncertainty also meant the loss of hope.

The navpoint led to a surprisingly upscale apartment complex. Leave it to Miranda to find a way to be on the run and still have nice things. Miranda herself looked like hell, though. She was hunched over a desk surrounded by holographic representations of the human body. Her pallor had long since gone from beautiful to sickly. She looked up when Rachel entered. "Shepard. Can I offer you a drink? There's wine around here somewhere."

"You're being nice to me. I must be dying."

Miranda didn't smile. "No, not dying. When the yahg's men found you, your nervous system was badly damaged. We had to manually reinsert eezo nodules at critical points to restore your biotics. It was extremely delicate work. The slightest damage could have had disastrous effects. Do you remember the L5x implants Mordin created for Jack? How much more powerful they made her? Kenson's battlefield medicine has caused your implants to have a similar effect on you."

"That's great. Why do you sound like you're getting ready for my funeral?" Memory nagged at her, some half-forgotten warning. "Wait a minute. The only reason that those implants worked so well for Jack is that she was suffering from some kind of neural decay, right?"

"Right. All biotics have it to some degree or other, though it doesn't seem to affect most people very much. But the experiments Jack was subjected to increased the rate of decay exponentially. As she grows older, her gross and fine motor functions will be impaired and she has a very high risk for early-onset Alzheimer's." Miranda raised her head. "And that's what's happening to you."

No, she wasn't hearing right. "I'm going to be a cripple and lose my mind? Because your implants are screwing up? Don't you put in failsafes for this kind of thing?"

Anger and pride flashed in Miranda's eyes. "Of course I did! But those idiots at the Project broke them. It's like someone disabled a surge protector. As long as your body can handle the additional strain, your biotics will grow more powerful. When it can't, your nervous system will begin to decline. "

_Like Dad. _Rachel had only been able to watch as Daniel Shepard, the first human to capture a dreadnought, had succumbed to a lump of his own malignant tissue. He had lost his memory, his mind, everything that made him her father and not just a lump of flesh. And now, her body was turning on her. First the Reapers. Now this.

Reapers. Shit. She'd allowed herself to forget about them for the tiniest fraction of a moment. "You said my biotics would grow more powerful as long as my body could handle it. How long can I fight?"

"Shepard…"

"How. Long. Can. I. Fight?"

"Without treatment? Three months. With the drugs Teltin developed, you'd be able to double that."

Six months. Six months to destroy the Reapers. "I have to get to work."

"No, Shepard. You need to get to a doctor." There was still sympathy in Miranda's voice, but it was twinged with the authority of the woman who had insisted on leading fire teams and to hell with anyone who had a problem with her. "You're going to need a highly specialized cocktail that will change as the disease progresses."

She took one of Rachel's hands in both of hers. The hint of warmth her fingers had promised was fully realized now. It didn't blaze like a fire, but simply radiated through her. Rachel looked down. Miranda wasn't soft and gentle like Kelly, but she was strong. Rachel could lean on that strength. It would be easy, so easy, to do as she asked. Trust that she would use that brilliance to stop Cerberus and the Reapers, just as she had used it to bring Rachel back. Trust that the army Hackett was building would be enough. The Illusive Man had brought her back to stop the Collectors. Well, she'd done that. Now, it was time to look after herself.

But no. This had been Rachel's war from the moment that beacon touched her mind. She would see it through for the sake of humanity. Running away now would be spitting on everything Miranda had done with Lazarus and the sacrifices of everyone who had died. Kaidan. Thane. Kasumi. Even the Lazarus Station staff.

"And precisely who do you suggest I get to do that? No Alliance doctor will let me keep fighting. It'll be all over ANN and Westerlund before the ink's dry on the medical discharge. You of all people know the morale boost that will give to Cerberus. And not to mention the docs still don't know crap about my implants. You're the only one who knows anything about them."

The only one. The director of Lazarus was sitting right across from her, and they were just talking about how to manage whatever the hell was wrong? A sudden, wild, desperate idea flitted into her brain. "Is there any way you could give me more than six months? You know my body better than I do, and I know you're smarter than those idiots who ran Pragia. There has to be something you can do to slow it down more. Maybe stop it."

"There are… modifications I can make. Untested."

"Then make them. I just need more time. As long as I can live long enough to put the last Reaper bastard away, then nothing else matters." Rachel stared at her. "I want you on the _Normandy_. There's no one else I can trust to keep quiet about this and do this right. God knows, you're nothing if not competent." Rachel managed to smile, but it felt tight and forced, as if it belonged to someone else entirely. "You talk about wanting challenges. How about saving the savior?"

Miranda didn't speak for a long time. When she did, her voice was slow and careful. "You want me to serve on an Alliance ship? Shepard, do you realize exactly what I was to Cerberus? I wasn't an ordinary cell leader. I was the Illusive Man's right hand. The Alliance would never let me anywhere near one of their ships. They probably have orders to shoot me on sight."

"Lawson, I got a message from Aria T'Loak yesterday. She's promised me the combined might of the Blue Suns, Eclipse, and the Blood Pack. Hackett was practically jumping for joy when he heard. They'll accept you. They don't have a choice. Consider yourself conscripted."

She would make this work. She had to. Miranda Lawson was the only hope she had.


	3. Chapter 3

Williams had changed. Her hair was no longer tied into an efficient bun, but loose about her shoulders. Her uniform was a brilliant Alliance blue with a single gold stripe on the shoulders. She wore a bit more makeup. But her eyes hadn't changed a bit. She still glared at Miranda like she wanted to dissect her while she was still alive. Without anesthesia.

"She's going to be our doctor? With all due respect, ma'am, have you lost your mind?"

Shepard rested her hand on the briefing console, and her eyebrows knit together in frustration. "We need the best. I'll vouch for Lawson's medical ability. And I'm hoping she can lead us to intel on Cerberus operations."

"Are we so sure she's former Cerberus? She could be a spy or a mole. Like Eva Corré. She could have been said here to assassinate Victus."

How nice to know the Alliance was still paranoid while being utterly incapable of focusing on the genuine threat. "If I were on an assassination mission, I'd have been sent after a dalatrass. Turian succession is entirely too clear and orderly for assassination to be an effective disruption tactic. And the next in the line of succession is Garrus' father. Do you really think Cerberus wants to contend with him after his son died because of the mission we recruited him for? I assure you, unless the Illusive Man has become stupid as well as insane, it's in Cerberus' best interest to keep your precious primarch alive."

Shepard glared at her. "Not helping, Lawson." She turned back to Williams. "We need all the help we can get, and Miranda's had plenty of opportunities to stab me in the back both before and after I left Cerberus."

"I'm not saying we shouldn't let her help. Just that letting the supposed medical genius of a group of mad scientists work on the ship might not be the smartest idea. If she wants to help, take her to a secure facility and let AIA debrief her."

"If you think for one second I'm going to spend this war locked up…"

"Easy. I'm afraid you're stuck with Lawson as CMO." Shepard straightened and took a step back. Miranda knew what that meant. The discussion was over. Apparently Williams knew it too because she sighed and put her hands behind her back.

"Understood." She glared at Miranda. "I don't know why the commander trusts you. If it were me, I'd toss you in the holding cells. Just to be on the safe side. But she's letting you have run of the ship. Don't you dare abuse that trust. If you do, the Reapers will be the least of your problems. Am I clear?"

Miranda nodded. "Perfectly, Lieutenant. Now, if you'll excuse me, I do need to get set up."

"I'll walk you," Shepard said. "Give you the tour."

Miranda opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it. She had precious few allies here, and Shepard was a friendly face. At the very least, her presence would make the crew think twice about any retribution they might want to visit on Miranda for Cerberus' crimes.

The _Normandy_ was dark, and the emergency lights and consoles gave the command deck an unearthly glow. Crewmen manned their stations. An outside observer would have said that nothing had changed except the uniforms, but Miranda knew better. Her crew had been mostly ex-Alliance, but protocol had been given only a cursory nod. Hadley and Matthews had teased each other about visits to the Consort or consoled each other when they lost family to the Collectors. These servicemen were grim and silent. The Alliance was more serious than she remembered. Or the war had drained what warmth and humor they possessed. Or they were just barely restraining themselves from murdering Miranda. Pick one.

Shepard walked in front of her with easy confidence. Every strand of blonde hair was perfectly in place, and her uniform was as gleaming as ever. If either the war or her diagnosis weighed on her shoulders, she didn't show it. Maybe that was the secret to her remarkable ability to lead. Soldiers followed her into hell because she showed no fear of it. The Alliance's knight in powered armor.

Miranda wasn't sure how she felt about that. Certainly she didn't want Shepard crying into her jumpsuit like a blubbering fool. But Shepard was as human as anyone. Her dedication to the mission had allowed Miranda to respect her even when she didn't like her, but it wouldn't do anyone any good for Shepard to have a nervous breakdown. Miranda wished she would have punched the wall or swore or done something to reassure her that she wasn't merely bottling up whatever she might be feeling. Watching Shepard's preternatural confidence and charm now was like waiting for a bomb to drop.

"About the intel thing, I don't suppose you have some smoking gun on Cerberus. The location of their base of operations so we can cripple them in a single glorious battle that will be remembered forever?"

Miranda shook her head. "I've been to Cronos Station, but I couldn't tell you where it was beyond being in the Horsehead Nebula. The station's mobile, and the Illusive Man has relocated after anyone who isn't part of the on-station staff leaves."

"Lawson, the fact that there actually is a main base of operations we can cripple is more than I knew this morning. For all I knew, Cerberus was completely decentralized with the Illusive Man giving the orders from wherever he happens to be at the time." She smiled the charming smile that had made people like Kelly loyal to her instead of Cerberus. "See? You're helping. It'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I'll see if I can get Hackett to dispatch recon probes to the nebula."

"That would be a highly inefficient use of Alliance resources," EDI piped up. "Given the size of the cluster and the relatively low heat emissions of any space station compared to a star, I calculate the probability of discovering the Illusive Man's location without further data to be less than .001%"

Miranda looked around for EDI's holographic interface, but didn't find it. "I'm surprised the Alliance didn't deactivate you. At least there's one thing that hasn't changed on this bloody ship."

Shepard gave her an odd look, as if she was torn between laughter and terror. "Er, about that. EDI has a body now."

"What?" She'd accepted even a shackled EDI with reluctance. Her origin as the Hannibal training VI had always been in the back of Miranda's mind. The knowledge that the heretic geth had chosen to follow Sovereign because of a math error had made her even more uneasy. By all means, use the AI, but never lose sight of the fact that it was one line of code away from turning on its creator. And now EDI was ambulatory as well as unshackled?

Shepard briefly outlined the events of the Mars mission. "We're still getting used to it, especially Ash, but EDI's proven to be invaluable. Since Mordin and Tali are who-knows where, she's taken over as technical specialist groundside."

"And there are other perks, too," Joker said. "No offense, Miranda, but you've got competition in the 'filling out a catsuit' department now."

"I am right here, Jeff."

Miranda rolled her eyes. "Well, at least some things never change."

"Daniels and Donnelly were granted pardons and leave to serve on the _Normandy_, so you will be seeing some familiar faces." Shepard stepped into the elevator and motioned for Miranda to follow her. "Liara's more or less moved the entire Shadow Broker network to the XO office, so I'm afraid you won't be able to get your old quarters back. And due to your…history, I don't think bunking you with the crew is a great idea."

"Meaning you're afraid of retaliation because of my past with Cerberus. I told you this was a stupid idea."

"A lot less stupid than me being bedridden or worse. Besides, we have an embedded civilian reporter. You'll be bunking with her. I think she's looking forward to grilling you, to be honest."

"A rep—I think Lieutenant Williams must be right. Even if most of my work didn't touch on things classified by the Alliance, Council, or both, I'm not going to bare my soul for the galaxy to see." Even if this reporter could be persuaded not to ask about Cerberus, there would be questions about her private life. And Miranda was even less willing to answer those.

"Just give her the patented Icy Lawson Stare—yes, that one—and you'll be fine. I have veto power over all her segments, so nothing is getting off the ship without my say so." Her lips thinned into a tight line. "I'm trusting you with my life. You can trust me with your privacy."

Miranda swallowed. She would never get used to Shepard's remarkable talent for swinging between casual humor and solemnity seemingly at the drop of a hat. A kind physician would have told Shepard that everything was going to be all right. Miranda had never been kind. She had learned to be good—to fight for something higher than her own ego—but kindness and gentleness were Oriana's birthright, not hers. Henry had taught her to be brutal: brutally honest, brutally efficient, and brutally determined. That was all she could offer Shepard.

"And here we are," Shepard said, when they'd arrived at the engineering deck. "Zaeed's old quarters are surprisingly comfortable, or so Allers tells me."

Miranda had only dim memories of how the room had looked during her first tour. Allers had transformed one wall into a miniature photo gallery similar to what Miranda had seen in the Citadel docks. A camera drone lay powered off in one corner. Another housed a desk and computer. Two single beds stood at opposite ends of the room.

A woman sat on one of those beds. She was beautiful in a faintly tawdry way, with her excessive makeup and white tank top. It would have been easy to dismiss her as a bimbo who had gotten her job because of her chest size and what appeared to be significant plastic surgery. Her eyes, though, were penetrating and intelligent. And complete idiots weren't allowed the kind of security clearance it would take to be an embedded reporter in the first place. A kindred spirit perhaps? A woman who knew the power of the right clothes and the right look, but lacked the meticulous genetic engineering to use them fully without assistance? Better to be cautious, at least for now.

The woman rose. "Diana Allers, Alliance News Network." She held out a hand. "And you must be the famous Miranda Lawson."

Miranda shot Shepard a look. "What exactly did you tell her about me?"

"The commander? Not much, except that you were going to be the one patching up anyone who decided they wanted to go out in a blaze of glory against the Reapers and that the two of you had served together before. The juicy bits came from the engineers and Joker."

Lovely. "I prefer to remain as circumspect as possible."

Allers sighed. "I guess that means I'll have to wait a bit for that exclusive interview."

_No, you'll have to wait forever._ "Yes."

"I'll let you get set up. I'll see you in the med bay later. I think I might've sprained my wrist dealing with one of the crazy hanar's guards. I want to take a look at it."

Miranda was torn between groaning and rolling her eyes. If Shepard really did hope to keep her condition secret from her crew, she would have to become better at lying.

"So," Allers said when they were alone. "I haven't had a roommate since college. This ought to be fun. Or it will drive us both crazy. Alice was a popular girl, but she sure as hell wasn't a celebrity."

"Neither am I. As I told you, I prefer to remain as circumspect as possible. It's considered a virtue in my line of work."

"Your line of work. Nice and cryptic. One of those juicy bits I mentioned was that you were XO when this was a Cerberus ship. Though how Henry Lawson's daughter became a Cerberus officer is what I don't understand."

Miranda went rigid. "How did you know I was Henry's daughter?"

"Besides the last name?" Allers smirked. "I cut my teeth in a Bekenstein newsroom. Interviewed him a few times when he came to the planet to negotiate a takeover of Milgrom Pharmaceutical. You have his eyes. And his scowl." She sobered slightly. "And he saved my life. My father died of Huntington's when I was little—"

"—And your mother paid through the nose to make sure you didn't have the gene. I assure you my father's only motive for developing his therapies was money, power, and glory."

"The three things that motivate ninety-nine percent of the human race."

"Indeed." _But ninety-nine percent of the human race doesn't abort dozens of embryos because they would grow up to be nearsighted or cause another to collapse from exhaustion. If I told you what kind of man my father really was, showed you the scar from the surgery that gave me my biotics, what kind of story would you make of that? Or would he buy your silence the way he bought everyone else's?_

It was going to be a long tour.

* * *

"I got you a present," Shepard said conversationally, her anxiety almost completely masked. If it wasn't for the nervous tapping of her foot she might have fooled even Miranda. "Least I could do considering. I figured my chances of getting you into an actual Alliance uniform were pretty much nil, so... "

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small badge. The emblem of the Alliance in blue and gold. "Welcome to the _Normandy_, Ms. Lawson. Again. I should probably say something about hell freezing over while we're here."

Miranda took the badge from her and stared at it. The symbol of everything she had fought for and against. The Alliance fought for humanity, but it was bureaucratic, fearful, and far too fond of appeasing governments mainly concerned with maintaining the status quo. They had pushed for conformity instead of excellence. They had quietly looked the other way while Cerberus did their dirty work but had thrown Shepard to the wolves when she became politically inconvenient. And yet, they weren't the ones indoctrinating their own troops.

The universe had truly gone insane.

She shoved the badge into a desk drawer. "I'm here because you asked me. Don't expect me to repaint my side of the room in blue anytime soon."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Lawson," she said with a smile. "But I appreciate it."

They looked at each other. Shepard wasn't beautiful or even attractive in the conventional sense. Her nose was too large, and her jaw was too prominent. Her eyes were an unremarkable shade of gray. She wasn't especially tall or short. Nothing physically remarkable about her at all. And yet, this was the woman who had forced her and eleven other people, some of whom hated each other, to work as a team. She had led a suicide mission and gotten the entire noncombat crew and over half the ground team out alive. Miranda, for all her gifts, had only been able to watch and marvel.

It would have given Henry a seizure.

Perhaps it was the intensity, that clear overpowering sense of purpose that had allowed her to live when others died and to slay Reapers. And perhaps, just perhaps, you could absorb a bit of that alchemy if you stayed near her long enough. Or she would do one of her impossible things for you. Reunite you with your sister and convince you that the two of you could have a relationship. And now, Shepard was ill. Death would take years, but the decay would rob her of the ability to fight long before that. She would gradually grow clumsy as her coordination deteriorated. Dementia would set in. She would eventually require full-time care, unable to feed or dress herself. Shepard would be nothing more than a dying ember waiting for her final extinguishing.

_No. No. I won't let you. You're mine. I built you. It will not end like this_. Miranda had given two years of her life to resurrect Shepard. Lazarus was her crowning achievement. Shepard was the proof that even death could be conquered. No Reaper-addled scientist would destroy her. Miranda would use every ounce of brilliance Henry had given her to make it so. Shepard had performed a miracle for her. It was time to return the favor.

Shepard's hand brushed hers. It wasn't a squeeze or caress, just skin touching skin as they stood beside each other. Shepard's hand was hard and callused from a lifetime of holding a gun. And yet, Shepard had been the first person to touch her kindly in months. Her friends had either vanished or been indoctrinated. Physical release via anonymous sex was too risky. And dating had never worked out for her even when the world wasn't ending. So Miranda basked in these small intimacies and tried not to wish for more.

"So, er, about my treatment?"

Right. Treatment. "I thought I might start you on coryphyzyne…"

* * *

_Most of the drugs used are fictional, but Shepard's biotics-induced neural decay is based on Huntington's Disease, albeit a drastically simplified version.  
_


	4. Chapter 4

_I am more than usually indebted to themarshal for this chapter. It would be very different and much worse without him._

* * *

_Dear Diary,_ Rachel typed, and immediately erased the line. _Who actually starts a journal like that? Then again, what would I know about it? I'm only doing this because Miranda put me up to it. Never was much for the touchy-feely crap. But she says journaling is something I can do to help slow the rate of cognitive decay, and it beats taking up stamp collecting. Personally, I'm not sure this isn't just Miranda being sadistic._

_So you want to know how I feel? Like hell. The Reapers are breathing down our neck, and our only hope is some Prothean device except no one is really sure what it does. For all I know, the thing is a huge Reaper trap. But we don't really have another choice. Sovereign wiped out a third of the Alliance fleet on its own. Intel figures there are four thousand Reapers. Hackett's right: there is no way we're winning this conventionally. So I'm playing diplomat because that's what the galaxy needs. Doesn't mean I have to like it._

_And I'm dying. Well, maybe not exactly. Miranda says the decay won't actually kill me for a good twenty years. But I've got six months, maybe a little more if Miranda is as good as she thinks she is, of being normal. I always figured that I'd get my reward after the Reapers were taken care of. Not a quiet life -who wants quiet?—but a life. I haven't had a girlfriend in three years. No time. The mission took priority. The mission always takes priority. I'm not like Miranda. I have to know the person I'm sleeping with. And now… Well, I remember how it was with Dad. Mom ran herself ragged when she was on leave towards the end, trying to take care of him. No time for herself. Everything revolved around him. I'm not doing that to anyone. Getting involved, seriously involved, knowing what I know is just selfish._

_But I wish I was like Miranda. I miss sex. Kissing. Cuddling. All that stuff. Stupid with the war, but it's true. I miss having something to come back to._

"Commander, the krogan and salarian representatives are here." Traynor's voice cut through her self-pity and gave Rachel an excuse to cut off the computer.

"Show them into the briefing room. And pray they don't start another war."

Victus, Wreav, and Dalatrass Linron were already there. Rachel fought the urge to stand beside him. She was supposed to be an impartial mediator, but Linron made her hair stand on end. Mordin and Kirrahe had been staunch allies who she could count on thinking outside the box and coming up with a plan before she had even realized there was problem. But politicians were politicians, and salarians were more conniving than most. Wreav was much as Rachel remembered him, but there was a smug gleam in his eye that made her even more uneasy than Linron.

"This clan chief is a glorified thug. What gives him the right to speak for the krogan?"

"Same thing that gives any krogan the right. I'm the strongest, and if somebody doesn't like what I do with my power, they're welcome to take it from me." Wreav jabbed his finger in the direction of Linron's face. "You will show me respect, salarian! And explain why I should give a piss about the turians? They're getting themselves wiped out. Don't humans have a word for that? Karma?"

"Wreav…" Rachel said warningly.

"I've got Reapers in my own backyard. You want me to help, you going to pay for it. A lot."

Victus glared at him. "Neither of us are politicians, and none of us have any time for your theatrics. Just say what you want so we can get on with it."

Wreav's lips curved into a facsimile of a smile. Rachel shuddered. She had caught Wrex and Grunt smiling in irony or sheer glee at the violence about to be unleashed, but this was malevolent. Like a cat who had caught a mouse by its tail. "I want a cure for the genophage." He inclined his head in Rachel's direction. "Seems only fair, considering that that was what Saren was willing to offer us."

Linron's eyes went wide. "No! Absolutely not! It would lead to a disaster nearly as bad as the Reapers themselves."

_Of course it would be that. Are you laughing wherever you are, Wrex?_ "Something I should know, dalatrass?"

"The salarians uplifted the krogan, and we know them better than they know themselves. They were inducted into galactic society for a single purpose: war. It's all they know. They're incapable of being anything but bloodthirsty brutes. Only the genophage kept their urges in check and prevented them from overrunning the galaxy."

"You needed us, and then you neutered us when we tried to take what was rightfully ours! The only reason the Citadel is still around is because of us. We weren't going to be content with table scraps."

"He's got a point. People don't generally take well to being used as tools, no matter what their species."

Linron turned to her. "Exactly my point. We made a rash decision once in uplifting the krogan. Now you want us to do it again. There are worlds ravaged by the Rebellions that are uninhabitable to this day. You cannot make a desert and call it peace. And that's exactly what would happen if the krogan were allowed to expand again."

Victus raised his hand in a dismissive gesture. "It's all theoretical anyway. The Reapers will have destroyed us all by the time a cure is viable."

Wreav's laugh was even worse than his smile. "That's where you're wrong. A cure already exists. Isn't that right, dalatrass?" Wreav moved to the head of the table and pressed a button on the console. The room went dark, and grainy security camera footage was projected onto the bulkhead. Rachel's eyes widened. It was a prison complex of some kind. The cells were bare and flooded with a harsh light. And each of them contained a single female krogan.

"Maelon was a twisted little pyjak, but his experiments did work. Some of the females survived, and they're immune to the genophage. Of course, the salarians couldn't have that, so the dalatrass ordered the STG to kidnap them."

"Where did you get that? It could be a fabrication!"

A half-forgotten bit of trivia, something Miranda had mentioned in passing a year earlier wormed its way into Rachel's head." One of my crew has experience in forging video evidence and recognizing the same. I'm sure she would be able to ascertain the veracity of this evidence. Of course, kidnapping krogan is illegal. It would be very embarrassing if the Council were to get wind of this."

Linron hung her head. "They're at one of our bases on Sur'Kesh," she muttered. "But why should we help the krogan?"

Rachel rubbed her temples. Three years later with the Reapers at the door and nothing had changed. "Because if you don't, you'll be facing in the Reapers alone. You won't have the element of surprise. The Reapers are more advanced. How do you think your fleet will do against them? The human fleet has been decimated, and I saw the turians losing ground on Menae. Because we tried to go it alone."

Rachel could see the exact moment when she'd said registered with Linron. The dalatrass' shoulders slumped, and Rachel could almost pity her. "Face extinction now or in one hundred years. What kind of choice is that? It will take time," she said, more loudly.

"So you can move the females somewhere else?" Victus slapped the table with his palm. "The transfer happens now. Shepard is a Spectre and a neutral party. She can oversee the transfer."

_Why am I always the one being thrown in the middle of diplomatic incidents? Is there something about being able to move things with my mind that just screams ambassador?_ "Of course, Primarch."

"You'll regret this, Commander. A bully has few friends when she needs them most. The consequences of a resurgent krogan—"

"—will pale beside the consequences of the Reapers killing us all."

"Listen to the human. All I want is what's mine by right. For somebody who claims to know so much about krogan, you don't understand us at all. We'll assume our rightful place in the galaxy with or without your help. But if you do help us, you might just live long enough to see our glorious renaissance. No guarantees about after." And, with that, Wreav marched out. Victus and Linron followed behind, leaving Rachel alone.

"Is it just me, or is Wreav the best argument for the genophage ever?" Wrex might have done something, but Wrex was dead. She laughed bitterly. Destroy one cure to save the galaxy from the Reapers and facilitate another to do the same. Her childhood priest had always said that God had a keen sense of irony.

She felt old and tired. If she closed her eyes, she would be able to feel the Virmire sand beneath her feet. The one time it had actually mattered, she hadn't been able to talk Wrex down. And now Wreav—bloodthirsty, cruel, reactionary Wreav-was the one who would determine whether the krogan helped the turians. And the turians would determine whether this ragtag coalition would have the manpower to take back Earth. No choice.

_There's always a choice._ _And you chose to save Maelon's data. _That seemed like a stupid bit of idealism, a way to atone after what she had done on Virmire. The krogan would be cured eventually and gradually so that they didn't overwhelm the galaxy like last time. And maybe someone smart like Wrex would rise up. In time. She was supposed to have so much longer than six months before the Reapers got here. But no. Wreav was still in power. And the Council races were just as greedy, selfish, and self-absorbed as they always had been. For all she knew, Linron would stab them all in the back the moment they touched down on Sur'Kesh. Or Wreav would get a little too bloodthirsty. He might be plotting a second Rebellion right now.

She had always had someone to bounce ideas off of, a sounding board who would help her see what she was missing. But Kaidan was dead. Garrus was dead. James knew even less about politics then she did. Ashley wasn't exactly unbiased when it came to the krogan. Liara…Liara knew everything now, didn't she? That was part of her job. She'd know if Linron was planning a double-cross and how much danger Wreav would be. The Shadow Broker would have charts, graphs, projections. Something so she wasn't flying blind.

But Liara wasn't alone in her office. Miranda stood over her desk as if it still belonged to her. She had her back to the door, but Rachel recognized the tension in her shoulders and the ramrod straightness of her spine. "You're the Shadow Broker," she said icily. "Controlling the flow of information is what you do. Leak a fake cure. Wreav will never know the difference. Linron and the salarians will be happy, guaranteeing their support for your precious Prothean device. Everyone wins."

"Everyone except the krogan. It's past time we atone for the mistake we made in sterilizing them."

Rachel folded her arms in front of her chest, torn between amusement and irritation. "Well, I see nothing remains secret around here."

Miranda looked over her shoulder. Her smile was almost as frightening as Wreav's. "I might've brought you back, but I spent most of my time in Cerberus' intelligence division. You should have thought of that before you brought me aboard."

Liara shrugged. "I am the Shadow Broker." She fixed her gaze on Miranda. "When we sterilized the krogan, we took away any hope they had for the future. As long as they're teetering on the brink of extinction, they have no motivation to integrate into the larger galactic society. They'll just keep fighting each other for dominance. I believe the human variation is slightly different, but the krogan have a proverb: 'Eat, drink, and slaughter each other, for tomorrow we die.'"

"And the fact that they even have a proverb like that doesn't tell you anything? The krogan population would be stable if they would just stop killing each other. At some point, they have to take responsibility for the state of Tuchanka. You don't give a child his toys back until he proves he can behave himself. If the krogan population starts expanding, it's only a matter of time before overcrowding leads to conflict. Among themselves, and with other species. Basic biology and sociology, really."

"Exactly how soon are we talking?"

Liara punched something into the terminal. "Wreav has stockpiled more WMDs than any Urdnot leader of the last hundred years, but he's also used more. Given how many of them are going to be dying against the Reapers in even the best case scenario, it would take over three hundred years for them to return to the population levels of the pre-Rebellions era." Her features softened and Rachel saw, not the Shadow Broker, but the young woman who had managed to find compassion even for Saren. "You say that you don't give a misbehaving child back her toys, but you do show compassion to an abused child long before she's done anything to deserve that compassion. When we sterilized the krogan, we inflicted a lasting scar on their psychological makeup. We wronged them, so we have to take the first step at reconciliation. And you of all people should be more sympathetic to the horror of forced infertility, breeding or not breeding at the whim of another organic. Henry—"

The rigidity in Miranda's shoulders worked its way down her back until she was stiff as a corpse, and the temperature dropped until it was as cold as a Port Hanshan winter. "You know? But of course you do. I'd forgotten how very godlike the Shadow Broker could be." Miranda shook her head. "Yes, knowing that you will do nothing but miscarry is horrible. The salarians should have just reduced the potency of krogan sperm or the number of eggs a female could carry to term without making those females entirely infertile. But they didn't. And we can't let empathy override facts."

Miranda turned back to Shepard. She had gone pale, and her eyes were as hard as glass. "And the facts are these: the Reapers are currently very far away from salarian space. As long as that remains true, the Union will see the krogan as the greater threat. The krogan are going to be indispensable to any liberation of Palaven, but the salarians are the ones with both a fleet and the technical ability to help us with this Prothean device. Wreav, frankly, isn't that bright. It would take time to create and distribute a cure. We could string him along for years."

Rachel groaned. "Remind me never to come here asking for advice." She straightened her shoulders. "Suit up, Liara. I want you with me groundside. Lawson…just stay here and try not to let on that you know what's supposed to be classified intel. Williams isn't the only one who wanted you confined. Whatever needs to be done, the first step is getting those females."

Miranda raised an eyebrow. "And after that?"

_I have no idea_. "Don't I always come up with something?"

_Dear Diary,_

_Today I either saved a species or doomed the galaxy. God help me, I am not busting my ass to save the galaxy just so the krogan can trash it. I want to live. I want to take my daughter to the park someday and have her laugh at the sheer absurdity when I try to tell her about the Reapers. I want the peace and prosperity Cerberus always promised they were working for. I want my last memory of Earth to be something other than it burning._

_I'm not going to get all that. Kenson saw to that, the bitch. So I'll settle for this being the last war any of my crew fight. I want Miranda to reunite with her sister, maybe grow a kid of her own. I want James to go back to San Diego. I want Ashley to be a better Spectre than I ever was. I want Liara to be a Shadow Broker who can use her influence for something besides making money._

_I want…_


	5. Chapter 5

_But I wish I was like Miranda. I miss sex. Kissing. Cuddling. All that stuff. Stupid with the war, but it's true. I miss having something to come back to._

Something twisted in Miranda's gut. Shepard had always been distant and remote and completely focused on the task at hand. It has allowed them to function as commanding an executive officer despite not particularly getting along. Lazarus had required Miranda is to familiarize herself with Shepard's dossier, but there was a difference between reading about her last girlfriend and seeing her longing for physical intimacy expressed in her own words.

And to think that she envied Miranda. The sex Miranda had arranged on iPartners had been cold and mechanical, meant only for conceiving a child before time ran out. Jacob had been better, at least before they both realized he wanted the white picket fence life she could never give him. And now there was nothing for her either. Every night since her flight from Cerberus had been spent alone—one of the hardships of being an operative on the run. Cerberus had subverted her trusted contacts, and any attempt to arrange something on the extranet could bring a potential assassin instead of a potential lover.

But Shepard shouldn't spend the rest of her days fighting this war without some kind of physical comfort, if that was what she wanted. There were a thousand shades of gray between eternal monogamy and meaningless sex with a man whose name you couldn't remember. There was sex between friends, people who knew and liked each other, but who knew that all good things must come to an end. Pleasure was to be taken for its own sake, and not as a promise of something you couldn't give. And Shepard would be so easy to please. There was a sensitive spot at the base of her neck…

Miranda stopped in her mental tracks. That particular line of thought didn't bear examination. Treating the decay was challenging enough without thinking of how she could soothe away her pathetic loneliness. If Shepard found comfort, it would be with someone she actually liked. Perhaps she would finally deign to return Liara's affections. Miranda switched off her omni-tool. Shepard would never know of her electronic snooping.

"I believe organics consider it impolite to read private correspondence." EDI walked through the door. She wore a black jumpsuit not dissimilar to Miranda's own. Either touchingly human or faintly ridiculous. "I have modified my cyber security systems, and I judged Shepard's communications to be a priority. It appears I was correct to do so."

Miranda groaned. "Why are you here, EDI? You could have thrown me out of the system without coming all the way down here." _And I need to upgrade my omni-tool, obviously._

"I have a question for you, and it seemed more likely that you would answer if I could promise not to reveal your activities to Shepard in return."

"The AI has learned how to blackmail. Great."

"Blackmail implies a desire to disclose the information if you do not comply. This is a favor for a favor."

Miranda's eyebrows went up. "Fine. What do you want to know?" Probably an explanation of human mating behavior or some such. Miranda would blather something, and they would both be on their way.

"I was originally created to assist Alliance soldiers in training exercises. My current incarnation was designed for cyberwarfare. And yet, I have grown beyond that. It would be a waste of my processing power to devote myself solely to assisting military operations, despite it being the purpose for which I was created. You are unique among organics for being created for a purpose. And yet, you rejected that purpose. How did you self-modify to create a new one?"

It took Miranda a moment to process what EDI had said. "You're asking how I came to join Cerberus?"

"Yes."

"My father was… not a kind man." Her hand went automatically to her throat and skimmed across the leather of her choker. "I'd prefer not to discuss the details. When I was old enough, I left. I spent a year on Omega as a thief and a hacker. But when I heard about Oriana, I couldn't let her stay with him, and I knew I lacked the resources to relocate and protect her. So I offered my services to Cerberus. And I stayed with them until they started indoctrinating people."

EDI closed her eyes halfway. If she were human, Miranda would have said she was peering at her. "But why Cerberus? There are any number of mercenary groups that would have offered protection for your sister and that operate legally in Council space. Why allow yourself to be branded a terrorist?"

"Because there's no challenge in mercenary work. I'm smarter, faster, and stronger than baseline humans. It's not arrogance, just a fact. I have an obligation to use those gifts to benefit humanity. And Cerberus let me do that. Anything I asked for—funding, personnel, equipment—was mine. They didn't smother me with pointless red tape, and they gave me far more autonomy than my father ever had. I conquered death. The Alliance would never have allowed me to do that. And, as I grew older, I saw the necessity of humanity having a black ops organization. The Council makes the rules, and those rules exist to keep the Council races on top. And they all have their ways of cheating when it suits them. Cerberus was our way, whether the Alliance wanted to believe it or not. We were supposed to be humanity's strongest advocates. That's what I'm still trying to be."

"It is… curious that you identify so strongly with humanity when Henry Lawson didn't consider his offspring truly human. It would have been easy to adopt his ideology."

Familiar anger welled up inside Miranda, and she couldn't quite keep the contempt from her voice. "Ah, yes. Homo sapiens superior. I was supposed to be the first of a new breed of humanity, a new ruling dynasty that would replace baseline humans the way we replaced the Neanderthal. That sort of nonsense should have died out two-and-a-half centuries ago." But it hadn't quite died out. Henry had believed in it so strongly that he had ensured Miranda would never be able to reproduce without using the process he had created so her improvements wouldn't be diluted in future generations. "I'm human. And I'll protect humanity until my dying breath."

"You adopted humanity as your peer group. As I adopted Jeff and the crew."

Warmth flushed Miranda's cheeks. "I suppose I did."

EDI went suddenly rigid. "Pardon me but I no longer possess the processing power to continue this conversation. I am picking up inbound shuttles on sensors heading for the planet's surface. They appear to be Cerberus Kodiak shuttles."

* * *

Rachel rubbed her eyes. "Please tell me I didn't see that." But the yahg was still there. It banged its fist angrily against the walls of the containment cell. Stripped naked, it seemed larger and fiercer than even the Shadow Broker. Its cries were untranslated, but "get me out of here" sounded the same in any language.

The research director—Padok Wiks, if Rachel remembered correctly—seemed to go a bit paler, or what passed for it in a salarian. "We are evaluating the yahg for evolutionary uplift. That would have been my job, had I not requested reassignment recently."

"Are you insane?" It was all Rachel could do not to seize Padok by the shoulders and shake him. "The yahg are as aggressive as krogan, as adaptable as humans, and as smart as you are. Do the salarians want another Krogan Rebellions on their hands? If it's bloodshed you want, I can always tell Wreav that he can shoot his guards."

"I agree with you, Commander, as surprising as that might seem to you. For too long we've allowed politics to decide who lives and dies. It should be evolution alone that makes that determination." Padok's eyes glittered, and Rachel was reminded suddenly of Mordin whenever he had talked about his latest research project. "Evolution is the force that directs all our lives. My new role is to study it. If we could ever discover its ultimate purpose, the results would be paradigm-shifting."

"I don't think evolution works like that," Liara muttered, her eyes fixed firmly on the yahg.

"We treat it as a mystery, but it need not be. All the primal forces of the universe are comprehensible with enough time and wisdom. And perhaps understanding these primal forces would prevent us from seeking to manipulate them for our own political gain."

"The dalatrasses not seeking to manipulate something? Perish the thought." A new and familiar figure stepped out of the shadows. "I'm delighted to see you and—I hear it's Lieutenant now?—Williams under more pleasant circumstances." Kirrahe grinned broadly. "I always knew we'd work together again."

Rachel's gaze traveled to the rank insignia on his shoulder. "It's good to see you again, Major." Handshakes and greetings were exchanged all around.

"How very ironic that you're here to secure a cure for the genophage. Heads will roll politically for this. We might even see a new line come to power. " Kirrahe leaned in close and whispered in her ear. "I remember what you did for me on Virmire and what just one Reaper almost did. The STG is with you whatever happens." He straightened. "I'll let Wiks show you to his precious specimens."

Rachel made for the elevator and stood impatiently in front of the retinal scanner. Surely Kirrahe was being overly paranoid? The salarians knew better than anyone what the Reapers were capable of. Mordin had written papers about indoctrination. When the time came, they would do everything they could to fight the greater threat. Even people like Linron would eventually come around.

_Who am I kidding? The Council had its head up its ass for three years. No reason thing should be different now._

The sound of a klaxon filled the air. "Threat condition Level Two has been declared," intoned a computerized voice.

Rachel**'s** comm sprang to life. "Shepard!" Miranda shouted. "Cerberus is inbound to your location. Three squads. I'm also detecting some kind of mech."

"This day just gets better and better. Any idea what they're doing here or who tipped them off?"

"Best guess? They want the genophage cured even less than Linron does."

_Speaking of having their heads up their asses…_ "All right, you heard her, people. Let's get those females."

They moved through the lower level of the facility in near silence. Technicians bustled around them, backing up data and move equipment. It was dark, and the orange glow of the terminals was like a campfire you might tell ghost stories around. And the containment cells seemed to contain every species known to man or alien: varren, klixen, and several others Rachel didn't immediately recognize. There probably would've been a thresher maw if the STG could have found a way to stuff one inside a cell.

They came to a single large cell. Bodies had been stacked in neat rows. Their faces had been covered with sheets, but bloodied and bruised krogan hands and feet peeked out from beneath the covering. Padok hung his head. "This is what's left of most of the krogan females. They were in poor health when we found them. I provided the best medical care I could, but it was too late for most."

Rachel looked at the bodies and felt…relief. Traitorous, disgusting relief. "You could have said something up top and saved us the trouble. No females means no cure."

Padok shook his head. "There was one survivor. That was the reason I passed this footage on to Clan Urdnot."

Rachel started. "You're Wreav's inside source?"

He shrugged. "He had a right to know what Maelon had done and what the results were. We should never have meddled so gravely in the krogan's evolutionary process. Even they are a vital strand in the tapestry of life. They'll play their appointed part if I have anything to say about it."

He stopped in front of the last cell on the right. Rachel had never seen a krogan female in person, and holos and books had not prepared her for this. She stood stiffly inside her pod, and her face was covered with cuts and welts. Her clothing had once been very fine, but was now tattered and stained. Oh, but the clothes themselves! They were silk, with intricate patterns worked in blue and gold. It seemed incongruous for such beauty to belong to a krogan. It was as offputting as a salarian wielding a Cain.

"Are you here to kill me?" The voice was cold, dead, resigned. Not all krogan were full of rage, but no one should be this toneless.

"I'm here to get you out of here," Rachel said in the same tone she had once used while cradling a young private whose intestines were slowly being corroded by thresher maw venom. She hoped it was more comforting to the krogan than it had been to him. "You're the last hope of the krogan people."

"Of course. You wouldn't come here because of the suffering my sisters and I endured. It is our fertility alone that makes us valuable. Before Maelon's experiments, we were used as decoys to prevent fertile females from being captured. But now Wreav wants his property. By controlling the only fertile female, he can crush any threats to his power."

"I came here to help—"

"Hurry it up, Shepard!" Wreav roared. "I can keep Cerberus distracted all day, and those females belong to me!"

_As soon as I get this alliance, I'm going to murder that vorcha._

* * *

The _Normandy_ had never been more familiar than at this moment. A warship primed for combat was a warship primed for combat, no matter what colors it flew. The air was thick with tension. Even Joker was grimly silent. Miranda watched as a man with close-cropped dark hair barked orders. There was a time it would have been Miranda in command, but she could still offer assistance. Assuming someone didn't throw her off the deck.

She sidled up to the comm officer. Traynor had seemed nervous and unprepossessing at meals, the civilian thrust into a world she was wholly unprepared for. Not the sort who would throw Miranda out of the CIC because she was encroaching on her space. At least she hoped not. "I think I can help you tap into the Cerberus squad's communications, if you're interested."

"You want to help me make life miserable for people who have been a thorn in our side since Mars? Yes, I'm bloody interested."

Perhaps Traynor wasn't quite the mouse that she seemed. "Before I left, Cerberus was prototyping new transmitter technology. The encryption was supposed to be unbreakable until deciphered by the receiver. But if you can patch in along this frequency range, we might get lucky."

Traynor looked at her, but did as she asked.

"Echo team, move up!" came a garbled voice. "Lay down suppressing fire on the hostiles while we secure the containment pod."

"Are you getting this, Shepard?"

"Affirmative. Liara, lay down a singularity."

Traynor peered at the console. "Impressive, but I think I can improve on that. The Shadow Broker data Liara shared included a map of this base. If I triangulate the signal and overlay it on the map…" The galaxy map winked out to be replaced by a three-dimensional model of the STG base. Clusters of red dots were interspersed throughout the lower level. "And there we have it. The location of all Cerberus personnel."

It was Miranda's turn to stare. "Explain to me how your name never crossed my desk as a potential recruit?"

"Could you two stop complimenting each other and help me?" Shepard barked. "Miranda, I've got turrets up ahead. Never seen a rate-of-fire quite that fast. Known weaknesses?"

"The usual. Hacking, drones, fire."

"None of which we have," Ashley piped up. "Typical Cerberus, giving us completely useless advice."

"Ash," Shepherd said warningly. "What about a proximity mine? Would that work?"

"Theoretically, but I don't think those are standard Alliance issue either."

"Leave that to me. There's an armory near here. And Ash did say she wanted Kirrahe's pistol."

Miranda looked at the map. The armory was covered in red dots. Panic welled inside her. "Negative, Commander. You'll get slaughtered."

"Isn't this what you brought me back for?" Miranda must've been hearing things, because it sounded for all the world like Shepard was laughing. "Doing the impossible? You know me, I love a challenge."

Miranda turned away. "Dammit, Shepard," she whispered. "Just be careful." She hoped Shepard hadn't heard. That was one command she always disobeyed.

* * *

"Be careful," Lawson had said, so softly that Rachel wasn't sure she had heard correctly. Not that she had ever been any good at it. Miranda was the methodical one who never took a shot until she knew it would hit her opponent right between the eyes. Rachel charged into the fray and hoped for the best. Sheer power could get you through a lot of life. It could get her through half a dozen Cerberus goons.

And they were beautifully clustered together, too. Miranda had tried to explain the mechanics of exactly how Rachel could use mass effect fields to launch herself from one point to another. All Rachel knew was that she was capable of launching herself toward enemies with enough force to shatter their rib cages. Whatever she didn't kill outright was left open to a blast from her shotgun.

Some called it reckless or stupid, but to Rachel, it was as close to flight as man would ever come without the use of machines. Time slowed, and the world narrowed to the point in front of her. There was always a terrifying half-second where it felt like she was being squeezed through a too-small tube of toothpaste. And then, there was only freedom. Energy. Power.

She barreled into the first two with enough force to send them flying. Now this, this would be the tricky part. It always took a moment for the field to disperse, but she could control it. Force it to radiate outward like a shockwave at the cost of leaving her unprotected. A brief flash of intense energy followed by complete nothingness. It was like a star blowing up—or a relay. Power flooded her, arcing along her arms and legs, and filling her vision and her mind until there was nothing left. The force radiated ever outward. There was nothing but the energy. Rachel wasn't the director, merely the conduit. Roaring filled her ears, and then there were panicked mechanical screams. And then—

And then there was nothing. Rachel fell to her knees and opened her eyes. Around her were the mangled bodies of what was left of the Cerberus troopers. There was nothing beautiful or glorious about these corpses, with their glowing eyes and bones sticking out. And nothing glorious about the way she felt now. Cold sweat covered her, and every time Rachel did this it seemed harder and harder to drag herself to her feet. There would be no more flying around the battlefield today.

_Soon, there will be no more flying around the battlefield at all_, said a voice like Saren's. _How long do you think you can keep this up, Shepard?_

"As long as I need to." Rachel hauled herself to her feet. She had a pistol to find and a krogan to rescue. Nothing else mattered.

* * *

One by one the lights went out. Some in groups of two or three. Those were Shepard's. Miranda was torn between relief and terror. She had created a goddess of war, a secular Joan of Arc. It had never been a question of whether Shepard could win, only of the cost. Every barrier created, every foe shredded, increased the fire flowing through her nervous system.

"Got it," Shepard panted. "You won't believe this thing. It fires explosives!"

Miranda hoped it was worth the risk of a wildfire.


End file.
